The Purloined Letter

Reprising their roles from "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," C. Auguste Dupin and his friend the unnamed narrator appear in a small library room in Paris, silently smoking and, in the case of the narrator, contemplating two of Dupin's previous cases involving the Rue Morgue murders and the death of Marie Rget. Monsieur G., the Prefect of the Parisian police, enters the apartment to ask Dupin's opinion of a case, although he refuses to do so in the dark because the idea is "beyond his comprehension" and thus an "oddity." He describes the case as simple but puzzling, but ignores Dupin's suggestion that perhaps its simplicity and self-evidence is what confuses the police. According to G., a letter has been stolen from the royal apartments that the police know the thief will use for blackmail. The letter belongs to a lady who was forced to hastily place it on a table when the person from whom she wished to conceal the secret entered the room. The Minister D., who also entered, saw and interpreted the contents of the letter correctly. He then placed a letter of similar appearance beside it before retrieving the incorrect paper prior to leaving. The lady saw the substitution but was unable to point it out because of the presence of the third person, who noticed nothing. Since then, D. has used his possession of the letter for political blackmail, and because the lady is unable to publicly reclaim the letter, she has asked the police to retrieve it for her. The narrator notes that the minister must still have the letter, since to relinquish it would be to lose his power of blackmail, but the police have been unable to locate it, despite having thoroughly searched D.'s apartment. D. cannot be keeping the letter on his person, since the police have already searched him twice. Dupin remarks that the minister cannot be much of a fool, although the Prefect disparages the man for being a poet and therefore, in the Prefect's view, unintelligent. The narrator asks the Prefect about the police's method of search, and the Prefect explains how thoroughly they have searched the apartment, particularly since the reward for the retrieval of the letter is so great. The narrator agrees with the Prefect that the letter must not be in the apartment, but Dupin asks G. to search it again before asking for a complete description of the letter. A month later the Prefect returns, having found nothing on a second search, and mentions that he will offer a reward of fifty thousand francs, since the retrieval of the letter has become increasingly important. Dupin tells the Prefect to write the check; the astonished Prefect does so, takes the letter from Dupin, and rushes away from the apartment. Dupin explains to the narrator that the police were very skilled but that the case was not suited to the unimaginative. He provides the example of a schoolboy who was particularly skilled at a guessing game in which he was to guess whether his opponent had an odd or even number of marbles and in which he bet one marble per game. The schoolboy won because he was able to emulate his opponent's logic by imitating the other boy's face in order to see how the expression made him think. The police only think about what they believe to be the best course and fail to consider the thoughts of the Minister. Dupin notes that the Prefect believes that D. is a fool. However, D. is also a mathematician and can thus combine creativity and logic. According to Dupin, while normal mathematicians lack imagination and would have hidden the letter away in exactly the type of place where a policeman would search, the Minister foresaw the probable avenue of investigation and chose an alternate route. Dupin offers the example of a game in which one attempts to guess the point on a globe of which the other is thinking. A novice will choose an obscure name, but a skilled player will choose a very prominent name, knowing that the other person will discard such names as possibilities because they are too obvious. The Prefect does not understand this reasoning, but Dupin places himself into the mind of the Minister

and realizes that the Minister would have decided to hide the letter in the most obvious place possible. After coming to this conclusion about the letter, Dupin visits D.'s apartment while wearing green glasses that conceal the fact that he is looking around the apartment. At length, he discovers several visiting cards and a letter that has been torn and altered in appearance hanging carelessly from a rack on the mantelpiece. D., it appears, placed the letter in full view after turning it inside out, readdressing it, and making it appear useless. Dupin memorizes the appearance of the letter while talking with the Minister and leaves a gold snuff box at the apartment. The next morning, he comes back on the pretense of having forgotten his snuff box, and when D. rushes to his window to observe a disturbance involving gunshots that Dupin previously orchestrated, Dupin substitutes the letter with a fake that he created the night before and soon returns home. The narrator asks why Dupin did not simply steal the letter. Dupin answers that D. might have been desperate enough to have his attendants kill Dupin. In addition, he notes that after a year and a half of being subjected to the Minister's blackmail, the lady will now have the upper hand. He predicts that D. will soon embarrass himself and cause his political downfall, but he has no pity for the man because D. is "an unprincipled man of genius" who once did Dupin a wrong, which Dupin good-naturedly promised to return. Dupin admits that he would like to know the man's thoughts when he opens the letter to read a quote from Crebillon's Atre et Thyeste which translates to "If such a grievous plan is not worthy of Atreus, then it is worthy of Thyestes." Dupin knows that D. will recognize Dupin as having gotten his revenge. Analysis Whereas Dupin's investigation in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" established the basic form for a classic whodunit mystery, "The Purloined Letter" takes an entirely different route to highlight Dupin's methods of ratiocination and use of creativity to place himself in the mind of the criminal. The case is clear in that the thief and the details of the crime are perfectly obvious, but what is not clear is how to outwit the thief and return the letter to its rightful owner. The story shows much more of the character of the Prefect, who merely appeared in order to act disgruntled and embarrassed at the end of the first Dupin story. As a result, the narrative includes two characters, the narrator and the Prefect, who serve as obvious foils to Dupin, while the Minister's similarities to Dupin advance the concept of double selves that is prevalent in so many of Poe's stories. With his energy, obvious emotions, and lack of insight, the Prefect stands in direct opposition to Dupin's calmer, more analytical approach to solving cases. His major fault is that he does not understand that the key to solving a case is to think in a way that successfully approximates the mindset of the criminal; instead, he resorts to trying to find more and more clever ways that he would personally have chosen to hide the letter while chasing answers that are increasingly further away from the correct solution. Whether the case is grisly and bizarre as in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" or simple and clever as in this instance, Monsieur G. requires the assistance of Dupin because of his consistent inability to imagine the psyches of others. The narrator is less removed from Dupin's point of view and is more inclined to think as Dupin would, but he lacks the perception that allows him to reason out the case himself and becomes a surrogate for the reader. Because the narrator writes in the first person, he takes on the role of conveying and interpreting Dupin's brilliance for the average individual. The clash between the Prefect and Dupin is revealing of their opposing temperaments, but it is also a source of humor, as Dupin constantly but subtly takes ironic verbal jabs at the oblivious Prefect, whom the story constantly shows at a relative mental disadvantage. When

the Prefect explains that the owner of the letter contacted the Parisian police to help her retrieve the letter, for example, Dupin sarcastically remarks that it must be a reflection of the Prefect's intelligence, a prod which the latter fails to notice, therefore highlighting his inability to understand anyone's thoughts but his own. Later, the Prefect dismisses the Minister because he is a poet and thus a fool, but Dupin notes drolly that he too is something of a poet. The exchange is entertaining because the Prefect is totally unaware of the fact that a poet's creativity is the trait that allows one to think like a Dupin or a Minister D. instead of like the Prefect. On the other side of the divide between the unimaginative and the analytical lies Minister D., who might be Dupin's equal in understanding the human mind. The concept of alter egos often appears in Poe's short stories, and Minister D. functions as the criminal version of Dupin, a man who generally acts on the side of the law. Dupin evidently recognizes the similarity, for he tells the narrator that the Minister "is that monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius," and he takes pleasure in trumping the Minister in a battle of wits. In the fake letter that Dupin leaves for the Minister, he provides a quote about two Greek brothers from mythology, Atreus and Thyestes. Thyestes commits adultery with Atreus's wife, and in revenge, Atreus kills and cooks Thyestes's sons before feeding them to his brother. The quote implies that although Atreus committed a great wrong, Thyestes was as much or more at fault because he started the feud. The example is extreme, but Dupin nonetheless sends the quote to explain that although Dupin may have stolen the letter, the Minister was at fault because he committed the first crime. Despite all the discussion concerning the whereabouts of the letter in "The Purloined Letter," the letter itself is merely a literary device around which Poe constructs a game of wits. The contents of the letter and its implications in the political sphere are not included because the plot does not need them, and any other object would have served just as well. Significantly, when Dupin finally finds the letter, the Minister has placed it carelessly into a rack hanging from the fireplace after folding it inside-out and making it appear insignificant. The manner of his hiding the letter is extremely relevant for the purposes of the story, but its inconsequential appearance reflects its relative importance in the novel. We might also consider it ironic that after all the fuss over the letter, its contents will never become any more public to the fictional world of Dupin than it will to the reader.

The Purloined Letter Summary

How It All Goes Down On a windy, fall night in Paris, sometime in the 1800s, the narrator and C. Auguste Dupin are smoking pipes in the dark, thinking their thoughts. Suddenly, G, the head of the Paris police, enters. Do they want to hear a mystery? Do they ever! So G tells a story: A few months ago the royal lady (probably the queen) gets a letter. She's in her sitting room reading it when another royal person walks in (probably the king). She wants to hide the letter from him, but she can't get it into the desk drawer fast enough. Instead, she puts it on the desk, with the address showing. In strolls dangerous Minister D. He notices who the letter is from (the readers aren't told), notices that the royal lady is acting funny, and realizes she wants to hide the letter from the royal man. Right

in front of everyone, D switches the royal lady's letter with one of his own and walks out. The lady can't stop him, because she's afraid D will show her letter to the royal man. So, now he's using the letter to make the queen grant some vague but no doubt nefarious political wishes. Enter G, whom she's called in to find the letter for her. Thinking that D must have the letter either on his body or in his home, G has searched and searchlike, every night for the past three monthsand still found nothing. Dupin takes an interest, asking G to describe the letter, inside and out. Finally, G leaves, resolved to search again. About a month later, he comes back. Still no luck. By this point, he's totally frustrated and offers to pay fifty thousand francs of his own money to whomever can find that letter. Great! Dupin saysand hands over the letter. After G leaves (50,000 francs poorer, but stoked about the promotion this probably means for him), Dupin tells our narrator how he found the letter: He knows that D is smart, definitely smart enough to have known how and where G would search for the letter. He concludes that D probably hid the letter out in the open, where G (who's not so smart) would never think to look. So he waltzes over to D's house for a friendly little visit, wearing green glasses to hide his eyes. He sees the letter, disguised as another letter, in an organizer box hanging from the fireplace. The next day he returns with a copy of the disguised letter. Dupin then creates a distraction in the street, so that D wouldn't notice as he swaps the copy for the original. The final touch? Inside the fake letter, Dupin wrote a snide little note to gloat about how he's outsmarted D.

The Purloined Letter (1844)

Summary
In a small room in Paris, an unnamed narrator, who also narrates The Murders in the Rue Morgue, sits quietly with his friend, C. Auguste Dupin. He ponders the murders in the Rue Morgue, which Dupin solved in that story. Monsieur G, the prefect of the Paris police, arrives, having decided to consult Dupin again. The prefect presents a case that is almost too simple: a letter has been taken from the royal apartments. The police know who has taken it: the Minister D, an important government official. According to the prefect, a young lady possessed the letter, which contains information that could harm a powerful individual. When the young lady was first reading the letter, the man whom it concerned came into the royal apartments. Not wanting to arouse his suspicion, she put it down on a table next to her. The sinister Minister D then walked in and noted the

letters contents. Quickly grasping the seriousness of the situation, he produced a letter of his own that resembled the important letter. He left his own letter next to the original one as he began to talk of Parisian affairs. Finally, as he prepared to leave the apartment, he purposely retrieved the ladys letter in place of his own. Now, the prefect explains, the Minister D possesses a great deal of power over the lady. Dupin asks whether the police have searched the Ministers residence, arguing that since the power of the letter derives from its being readily available, it must be in his apartment. The prefect responds that they have searched the Ministers residence but have not located the letter. He recounts the search procedure, during which the police systematically searched every inch of the hotel. In addition, the letter could not be hidden on the Ministers body because the police have searched him as well. The prefect mentions that he is willing to search long and hard because the reward offered in the case is so generous. Upon Dupins request, the prefect reads him a physical description of the letter. Dupin suggests that the police search again. One month later, Dupin and the narrator are again sitting together when the prefect visits. The prefect admits that he cannot find the letter, even though the reward has increased. The prefect says that he will pay 5 0 , 0 0 0 francs to anyone who obtains the letter for him. Dupin tells him to write a check for that amount on the spot. Upon receipt of the check, Dupin hands over the letter. The prefect rushes off to return it to its rightful owner, and Dupin explains how he obtained the letter. Dupin admits that the police are skilled investigators according to their own principles. He explains this remark by describing a young boy playing even and odd. In this game, each player must guess whether the number of things (usually toys) held by another player is even or odd. If the guesser is right, he gets one of the toys. If he is wrong, he loses a toy of his own. The boy whom Dupin describes plays the game well because he bases his guesses on the knowledge of his opponent. When he faces difficulty, he imitates the facial expression of his opponent, as though to understand what he thinks and feels. With this knowledge, he often guesses correctly. Dupin argues that the Paris police do not use this strategy and therefore could not find the letter: the police think only to look for a letter in places where they themselves might hide it. Dupin argues that the Minister D is intelligent enough not to hide the letter in the nooks and crannies of his apartmentexactly where the police first investigate. He describes to the narrator a game of puzzles in which one player finds a name on a map and tells the other player to find it as well. Amateurs, says Dupin, pick the names with the smallest letters. According to Dupins logic, the hardest names to find are actually those that stretch broadly across the map because they are so obvious.

With this game in mind, Dupin recounts the visit he made to the Ministers apartment. After surveying the Ministers residence, Dupin notices a group of visiting cards hanging from the mantelpiece. A letter accompanies them. It has a different exterior than that previously described by the prefect, but Dupin also observes that the letter appears to have been folded back on itself. He becomes sure that it is the stolen document. In order to create a reason for returning to the apartment, he purposely leaves behind his snuffbox. When he goes back the next morning to retrieve it, he also arranges for someone to make a commotion outside the window while he is in the apartment. When the Minister rushes to the window to investigate the noise, Dupin replaces the stolen letter with a fake. He justifies his decision to leave behind another letter by predicting that the Minister will embarrass himself when he acts in reliance upon the letter he falsely believes he still possesses. Dupin remarks that the Minister once wronged him in Vienna and that he has pledged not to forget the insult. Inside the fake letter, then, Dupin inscribes, a French poem that translates into English, So baneful a scheme, if not worthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes.

Analysis
Along with The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter establishes a new genre of short fiction in American literature: the detective story. Poe considered The Purloined Letter his best detective story, and critics have long identified the ways in which it redefines the mystery genreit turns away from action toward intellectual analysis, for example. As opposed to the graphic violence of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, which features bodily mutilation and near decapitation by a wild animal, The Purloined Letter focuses more dryly on the relationship between the Paris police and Dupin, between the ineffectual established order and the savvy private eye. When the narrator opens the story by reflecting upon the gruesome murders in the Rue Morgue that Dupin has helped to solve, Poe makes it clear that the prior story is on his mind. Poe sets up the cool reason of The Purloined Letter in opposition to the violence of The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The battered and lacerated bodies of The Murders in the Rue Morgue are replaced by the bloodless, inanimate stolen letter. However, just as the Paris police are unable to solve the gory crime of passion in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, they are similarly unable to solve this apparently simple mystery, in which the solution is hidden in plain sight. Poe moves away from violence and action by associating Dupins intelligence with his reflectiveness and his radical theories about the mind. This tale does not have the constant action of stories like The Cask of Amontillado or The Black Cat. Instead, this tale features the narrator and Dupin sitting in Dupins library and discussing ideas. The tales action, relayed by flashbacks, takes place outside the narrative frame. The narrative itself is told through dispassionate analysis. The intrusions of the prefect and his investigations of the Ministers apartment come off as unrefined and unintellectual. Poe portrays the prefect as simultaneously the most active and the most unreflective character in the story. Dupins most pointed criticisms of the prefect

have less to do with a personal attack than with a critique of the mode of investigation employed by the police as a whole. Dupin suggests that the police cannot think outside their own standard procedures. They are unable to place themselves in the minds of those who actually commit crimes. Dupins strategy of solving crimes, on the other hand, involves a process of thinking like someone else. Just as the boy playing even and odd enters his opponents mind, Dupin inhabits the consciousness of the criminal. He does not employ fancy psychological theories, but rather imitates the train of thought of his opponent. He succeeds in operating one step ahead of the police because he thinks as the Minister does. This crime-solving technique of thinking like the criminal suggests that Dupin and the Minister are more doubles than opposites. The revenge aspect of the story, which Dupin promises after the Minister offends him in Vienna, arguably derives from their threatening similarity. Dupins note inside the phony letter, translated So baneful a scheme, if not worthy of Atreus, is worthy of Thyestes, suggests the rivalry that accompanies brotherly minds. In the French dramatist Crbillons early-eighteenth-century tragedy Atre et Thyeste (orAtreus and Thyestes), Thyestes seduces the wife of his brother, Atreus. In retaliation, Atreus murders the sons of Thyestes and serves them to their father at a feast. Dupin implies here that Thyestes deserves more punishment than Atreus because he commits the original wrong. In contrast, Atreuss revenge is legitimate because it repays the original offense. Dupin considers his own deed to be revenge and thereby morally justified.